The holidays are when our hope for good will and joy, love and meaningful connections is kindled. Perhaps because of this they can also be times of stress and emotional ups and downs when hopes are dashed. Like it or not, we are relationship beings after all. From the cradle to the grave according to researcher John Bowlby, nothing concerns our brains and bodies more.

The bottom line is this: Most all human behaviors are motivated by our inner hardwired emotional strivings to meaningfully connect with others and life, to matter. As real as inner drives for physical sustenance, we’re wired with core emotional drives, or needs, to love and be loved, to be recognized and valued, to find purpose — and contribute one’s love in life, and feel our love matters.

We looked at differences between “real” questions and rhetorical-why“s in Part 1, and, in Part 2, how rhetorical-why-loops can (seriously) trip up our brains.

Here we look at questions that can reboot our brains, as needed, especially when it comes to getting out of fear-inducing, toxic thinking patterns spawned by rhetorical-why loops, and back to normal optimal functioning.

In a breakthrough study published in the academic journal Science, researchers found newly formed memories associated with fear can be “erased” by disrupting the “reconsolidation” process that affects the memory content.

Using an MR-scanner, by repeatedly exposing subjects to the same memory without the fear previously associated with it, all traces of fear was dissipated from the part of the brain (the amygdala in the temporal lobe) that stores fearful memories.